Fauna of Madagascar

The fauna of Madagascar is a part of the wildlife of Madagascar.

Madagascar has been an isolated island for about 70 million years, breaking away from Africa around 165 million years ago, then from India nearly 100 million years later. This isolation led to the development of a unique endemic fauna.

Before humans arrived about 2,000 years ago, there were many large and unusual animals living there, descended from species that were originally present when Madagascar became an island, or from species that later crossed the sea to Madagascar. Ecological niches were often filled by animals with quite different histories from those on the African mainland, often leading to convergent evolution. A large proportion of these endemic Malagasy animals have died out since the arrival of humans, most particularly the megafauna.

Despite this, and massive deforestation, Madagascar is still home to an incredible array of wildlife, the vast majority of which is unique in the world. Madagascar is a primary spot for ecotourism, with more than fifty national parks and other protected reserves.

There are believed to have been only five colonization events of terrestrial mammals from mainland Africa. They are the tenrecs, the lemurs, the Malagasy carnivorans, the nesomyine rodents, and the now-extinct bibymalagasians. The other mammalian colonizations are the amphibious hippopotamuses (now extinct) and bats.

The lemurs are the best known of Madagascar's mammals. They can only be found on Madagascar. In the absence of monkeys and other competitors, these primates have adapted to a wide range of habitats and diversified into numerous species. The tenrecs are another group of mammals characteristic of Madagascar. Most of the world's species of these small to medium-sized insectivores are found on the island. Rodents are poorly represented on the island with only a handful of native species, all belonging to the subfamily Nesomyinae. They include the large, endangered Malagasy giant rat. Due to their ability to fly, a greater variety of bats have reached the island. However, only about a third of these are endemic, a lower proportion than in other groups of land mammals. There are eight members of the Carnivora on the island, all now classified in the endemic family Eupleridae. The cat-like fossa is the largest of these.

...
Wikipedia